No, but 18-year-old
Bria Sandoval wants to be. In a quest for independence, her neglected
art, and no-strings-attached hookups, she signs up for a guided tour of
Central America—the wrong one. Middle-aged tourists with fanny packs are
hardly the key to self-rediscovery. When Bria meets Rowan, devoted
backpacker and dive instructor, and his outspokenly humanitarian sister
Starling, she seizes the chance to ditch her group and join them off the
beaten path.

Bria's a good girl trying to go bad. Rowan's a bad
boy trying to stay good. As they travel across a panorama of Mayan
villages, remote Belizean islands, and hostels plagued with jungle
beasties, they discover what they've got in common: both seek to leave
behind the old versions of themselves. And the secret to escaping the
past, Rowan’s found, is to keep moving forward.

But Bria comes to
realize she can't run forever, no matter what Rowan says. If she ever
wants the courage to fall for someone worthwhile, she has to start
looking back.

My Thoughts:
I'm completely in love with this book :) I think there's a bit of wanderlove in all of us. This story is kind of a coming-of-age story. What I took away from it is this: you need to be comfortable in your own skin, you need to be ok with being by yourself & doing things by yourself, and you need to love yourself and the person you are. Without that, you'll never fully love anyone else or be loved completely.

I read this thanks to Netgalley and I'm so, so happy I did. I literally wanted to crawl inside this book and live there, forever. This isn't really a review, more an emotional outburst :)

Now, I'm off to pre-order an actual hard copy of this book for my 18 year old daughter...I'm hoping she will love it as much as I did.

Sophie
Cavanaugh is not going to let her freak of a cousin's strange
psychiatric condition ruin high school for them both. Not after all the
work she's put into cultivating the right look, and friends, and
reputation. But then, Sophie sees something so frightening she lets out a
blood-curdling scream--and finds herself stuck in a bizarre parallel
world where nothing is safe and deadly creatures lurk just out of sight,
waiting for her to close her eyes and sleep...forever.

Could this world be real? Or does insanity run in the family...?

My Thoughts:
While I don't particularly like Sophie (I'm not supposed to) it was nice to get a little insight into her character. Yeah, she's still a bitchy princess, but she's also strong, clever and witty, which was kind of cool to see. I look forward to seeing how this whole life-changing event will affect her and her attitude in the books to come. Maybe her tenuous relationship with Kaylee can evolve into something more than bickering, back-stabbing and insults. Also interested to see what Luca will bring to the series.

I'd love to see an Emma novella soon, hint, hint :)

Overall, I'm totally in love with this series and don't know why it took me so long to finally pick it up. Thanks to Melanie for providing the final recommendation for me to do that :)

About Me

I'm an avid reader. I have been since the 3rd grade, which was a LONG time ago! I also create book related products and I design book covers. When I'm not doing the above mentioned things, I enjoy watching far too much TV, collecting Funko Pops, spending time with my family and crazy animals, and working on my very first novel.